{"id":2485,"date":"2012-02-23T05:42:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T10:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/?p=2485"},"modified":"2015-06-04T15:14:58","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T19:14:58","slug":"hcv-and-the-retooling-of-hivid-specialists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/hcv-and-the-retooling-of-hivid-specialists\/2012\/02\/23\/","title":{"rendered":"Hepatitis C and the “Retooling” of HIV\/ID Specialists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The news that hepatitis C (HCV) has passed HIV as a cause of death in the United States got quite a bit of attention when it was first presented last year at ICAAC — and no doubt the published paper, in this week’s Annals of Internal Medicine<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0will also cause a stir.<\/p>\n

In fact, I boldly predict that going forward, (approximately) 94.2% of HCV-related research grants, journal articles, and lay press articles will cite this paper, making it (for now) the “Palella NEJM 1998”<\/em><\/a> of HCV.<\/p>\n

(For those of you who don’t know Palella NEJM 1998<\/em>, this was the first paper in a major medical journal to demonstrate the dramatic decline in HIV-related mortality due to effective HIV therapy.\u00a0Figure 1<\/a> from that study is permanently emblazoned on HIV specialists’ retinas.)<\/p>\n

But the Annals <\/em>paper also reminded me — again —\u00a0that there’s a significant retooling going on in the HIV\/ID field to accommodate HCV. And for some docs and HIV organizations, it’s more than a retooling — it’s practically a comprehensive overhaul. What do I mean exactly? Some citations, some anecdotes:<\/p>\n